ImaginationLancaster, part of The Institute for the Contemporary Arts at Lancaster University in the U.K., focuses not just on art and design but on those paths that will foster design skills to tackle future real world issues. This creative research center enables people and organizations to engage with academia in creative ways. Their broad mission can leave a gap between creative vision and the tools available to fulfill that vision. For Dr. Daniel Richards, a lecturer at Lancaster University, whose research area is computational design or how complex objects can be fabricated with new technologies, the question driving his research is: what is the future of Computer Aided Design (CAD) for advanced manufacturing?

“With voxel printing that has the capability of a trillion
voxels in the space of the printer and six different
materials, the number of possible combinations is six to
the power of a trillion, which is an astronomical number.”